Milk

Milk is a white colored liquid produced from the mammary glands of female mammals. Milk in food is primarily milk from cows, although some food products may contain goats milk.

Types of Milk

There are several forms in which milk is made and included in food products. Milk can be in dry or liquid form and is usually pasteurized. Different types of milk used in products can be standardized milk, whole milk, reduced fat milk (1%), low fat milk (2%) and skimmed milk also known as non-fat milk.

History

Animal milk is first known to have been used as human food at the beginning of animal domestication. Cow milk was first used as human food in the Middle East. Goats and sheep were domesticated in the Middle East between 9000 and 8000 BC. Goats and sheep are ruminants: mammals adapted to survive on a diet of dry grass, a food source otherwise useless to humans, and one that is easily stockpiled. The animals were probably first kept for meat and hides, but dairying proved to be a more efficient way of turning uncultivated grasslands into sustenance: the food value of an animal killed for meat can be matched by perhaps one year's worth of milk from the same animal, which will keep producing milk in convenient daily portions for years. [1]